Learning to breathe
by MerchDoyle
Summary: Six months after the movie, a familiar face returns to cause more mayhem. However, his intentions aren't clear...


I don't own the F4 characters.

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My name's Maria Grimm. I used to be just that, just plain little Maria, but six months ago, that changed. Well, actually things changed nine years ago on my tenth birthday. I used to be little Maria, the one with the funny accented mother who made great cookies, and had a garden full of Leprechauns. My mother was Irish, but the luck of the Irish didn't really rub off on her, maybe it was because she married an American… or maybe fate just was that way.

My parents were killed in a car accident driving back from my uncle's house, as that was where we had the birthday dinner. I wasn't in the car though, I was staying with my uncle Ben. I went to live with him too, and he adopted me, so now he's my father.

But he's not just my father anymore, and I am not just Maria Grimm. He is now 'The Thing,' a walking, talking rock pile, and I am his daughter. Six months ago he went up into space with his best friend Reed Richards, the siblings Sue and Johnny Storm, and a billionaire, Victor Von Doom. They went up human, but came back with super powers. I'm sure you've hear about them, read about them, seen them on television. So you already know about the battle with Doom, and how he got sent off to Latveria.

We now all live at the Baxter building, that's me, Sue, Johnny, Reed and Dad. I used to live with Dad and Debbie, I used to like her, before I realised how vain she was. She used to love my dad until he changed. I guess I should have seen it coming, coasters on the table, satin sheets on the bed that didn't crease. I very rarely saw her without a hair out of place. I swear, the woman has no idea what bed hair is. Funny, it stood out a mile she wouldn't be able to cope with an abnormal fiance. Jokes on her though, her public rejection of my father has rendered her alone.

I like Alicia though, she's cool. She made me a sculpture of an angle to put my bed, I pray to it every night to keep my dad safe when he's out fighting. I wish she had been around during the ordeal that was about to occur, but she had gone on a US tour with her gallery.

I've now taken up the role of worrier, I stay home and wait for them to come home after a fight. I wait and hope they come home. I know how a soldiers' family feels when their loved one is out in a war zone. Unsure whether or not they are going to come home. Wandering if this is the last time you see them, that this is the long goodbye, and the last 'I love you.'

I wander if this will be the last time I see my dad, or my boyfriend. I forgot to tell you that. I'm not just the daughter of The Thing, I'm also 'Maria, the girlfriend of the Human Torch.' We got together just after Doom was sent away. I followed him before that, when he'd jut had a fight with my dad and Sue. He had to a club, and people had shunned him. I had to remind him he wasn't Johnny Storm to them, he was the Human Torch. He'd asked me who was he to me, and I told him 'the same old pain in the ass'. That was when he kissed me, and the lights flickered. It was like something from a movie, only we knew that something bad had happened.

Doom was targeting each Fantastic Fourer one by one. But like I said before, you already know the outcome of that battle. But that's not the only battle they four have had to face. Perhaps maybe not as bad as Doom, but the occasional explosion is just as nerve racking.

I guess it's the same though for relations of a fire fighter, will they come out of the building alive? Or a police man, what if the other person has a gun too? I guess it's the same with anyone, you're don't have to be a daredevil. If someone had told me that my tenth birthday would have been the last time I'd see my parents alive… well if you've heard the Calling's song 'Could it be any harder?' you'd know exactly how I felt, and still do feel. Losing a loved one is like walking through a long dark hall where you can't see the other side. Any second you could hit a wall, or worse, fall down a hole. If you haven't lost a loved one, you're one of the rare ones, and are lucky enough not to have felt the pain.

Was I afraid of my dad when I saw him after his transformation? I guess I was at first, I mean the last time I kissed his cheek and said 'see you' he looked human. I didn't believe Debbie when she told me he'd called her, in fact I didn't believe it until I saw him on TV. So yeah, I was scared, I was scared for him, not of him. I was afraid he was going to die, I didn't want him to die, I still don't, and since my life changed six months ago, I figured I was going to be afraid for him for the rest of my life. I thought this was how it was always going to be… that was until I cleaned the laboratory that day.


End file.
